Overview
In a time of turmoil, love finds a way amidst the chaos of war.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Moderate
- witty
- absurdist
- romantic
- arthouse film night
- balkan cinema marathon
What critics said
Critics broadly praised Emir Kusturica's exuberant visual imagination, musical energy, comic ensemble, and emotionally affecting wartime romance.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Village life, musical interludes, eccentric behavior, and wartime disruption coexist without separating comedy from tragedy.
Luka's relationship with Sabaha develops while the surrounding Yugoslav conflict turns their connection into a dangerous emotional and political entanglement.
Luka concentrates on building a tourist railway and maintaining village life even as war fractures his family and community.
The scenic railway, rural landscapes, expressive performances, and heightened comic imagery transform the village into a vivid, unstable theatrical world.
Films like Life Is a Miracle, and why
Underground
shares exuberant tragicomedy, absurdist village life, Balkan cultural context, and war-shadowed human relationships
Black Cat, White Cat
shares Emir Kusturica's carnivalesque visual energy, musical atmosphere, comic grotesquerie, and wartime Balkan setting
A Very Long Engagement
shares a wartime romance shaped by displacement, moral conflict, and bittersweet emotional stakes
The Time of the Gypsies
shares lyrical absurdism, communal upheaval, and romantic drama unfolding amid armed conflict
Movie Details
- Director
- Emir Kusturica
- Release Date
- 2004-05-14
- Runtime
- 155 min
- Rating
- 7.2 / 10 (204)
Cast
- Slavko Štimac
- Nataša Tapušković
- Vesna Trivalić
- Vuk Kostić
- Aleksandar Berček
- Stribor Kusturica
- Mirjana Karanović
- Nikola Kojo
- Branislav Lalević
- Davor Janjić
Common questions
- What is Life Is a Miracle about?
- A railway builder's comic pastoral life collides with the Yugoslav Wars when a perilous romance offers him an unexpected path through family rupture and political division.
- What is Life Is a Miracle like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Life Is a Miracle as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Life Is a Miracle violent?
- Somewhat. Ember rates the violence in Life Is a Miracle as moderate.
- What did critics think of Life Is a Miracle?
- Critics broadly praised Emir Kusturica's exuberant visual imagination, musical energy, comic ensemble, and emotionally affecting wartime romance.
- Which films are like Life Is a Miracle?
- Films with a similar feel include Underground, Black Cat, White Cat, A Very Long Engagement, and The Time of the Gypsies.
- How long is Life Is a Miracle?
- Life Is a Miracle runs 155 minutes.
